“That,” said Hal, “is CHATEAU D’OR, which, translated into plain English for a stupid like you, means ‘Chateau of gold,’ though why that somber, dreary old pile should have that name is more than I can tell, unless it is that it cost so much to build it. It is nearly two hundred years old. Its first owner ruined himself on it, I believe, and it has passed through many hands since. You see that stream of water yonder, almost a river? Well, that passes entirely round the chateau, which really stands on an island, and is only accessible from one point, and that an iron bridge. That old building has been the scene of the strangest story you ever heard—almost a tragedy, in fact, and the heroine was an American woman, and native of my own town. I’ll tell you about it to-night, after we have had our dinner.” I was interested now, and leaned far out of the window to look at the chateau, which seemed gloomy and dreary enough to warrant the wildest story one could tell of it. And that night I heard the story which I now write down, using sometimes Hal Morton’s words, and sometimes my own. THE STORY. CHAPTER I. ANNIE STRONG. “Millfield,” said Hal, “is one of those little New England towns which seem to have been finished up years and years ago, and gone quietly to sleep without a suspicion that anything more could be expected of it. It stands on a spur of the mountains which lie between Pittsfield and Albany, and can be distinctly seen from the car windows, with its spotless houses of white, with fresh green blinds, and the inevitable lilac bushes and sweet syringas in front. I was born there, and when I wish to rest and get away from the noise and turmoil of New York, I go there and grow a younger and a better man amid the Sunday stillness which reigns perpetually in its streets. And yet you would be surprised to find how much intelligence and genuine aristocracy that little village has. There are the Crosbys, who claim relationship with the Adamses, and a real scion of the Washingtons, and a lineal descendant of Lord Cornwallis, and Miss Talleyrand, who prides herself upon having, in her veins, the best blood in New England, though good old Deacon Larkin’s wife once shocked her horribly by saying ‘she didn’t see, for her part, why Polly Talleyrand need to brag so about good blood, when she was as full of erysipelas as she could hold.’” Here I laughed heartily over Miss Talleyrand’s good blood, while Hal lighted a fresh cigar, and continued: